Marine Microbiome and Microbial Bioprospecting: Diversity and Bioactive Potential

Dr. Manikkam Radhakrishnan, Scientist-E, is currently working at the Centre for Drug Discovery and Development, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology. He has a combined experience of 16 years of teaching and research. He completed his PhD in Microbiology from National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (ICMR), Chennai. Throughout his study, he focused on research in Actinobacteria from different under studied sources and environments especially marine. He built up his experience studying the ecology, diversity, taxonomy and bioprospecting potentials of Actinobacteria from rare ecosystems in India. He has received 8 research projects (4 as PI and 4 as Co-PI) from different central funding agencies in India for pursuing research on marine Actinobacteria. All of his publications, which exceed 150, focus on Actinobacterial research, with very few exceptions. He has edited a manual titled Protocols in Actinobacterial Research and has published 28 book chapters.

Dr. P.V. Bhaskar, Scientist-E, is presently working at the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), under Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt of India, at Goa, India. He completed his PhD in Microbiology from National Institute of Oceanography, Goa. He has 27 years of experience in Marine Microbiology and Marine microbial food-web. He had focussed on Microbial EPS, Siderophores, Microbial diversity, microbial enzyme activity, bacteria-phytoplankton interactions, and role of microbes in carbon flow through the food-web, flux and production of DMS in diverse marine environments. He also has worked on distribution on carbohydrates in Indian Ocean. He has worked extensively in coastal waters (west coast of India), shelf waters (Gulf of Cadiz, Tokyo bay) and open ocean (Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal). Presently, he is working in polar waters including the Indian sector of southern ocean and Arctic waters and leading the marine microbiology component in the Indian Southern Ocean program. He has managed one project as PI and multiple projects as Co-PI. He has more than 35 publications in peer-reviewed journals and 3 book chapters.

Abirami Baskaran is currently working at the Centre for Drug Discovery and development, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, as a Senior Research fellow in a project involving study of marine microorganisms from the Southern Ocean. In addition, she works on bioprospecting of these microorganisms for their antimicrobial, polysaccharide, and enzyme producing properties. She completed both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Biotechnology. She has over 20 publications comprising research articles, reviews, short communications, manual chapters and book chapters in peer-reviewed internationally acclaimed journals and publishers.

Dr. Manigundan Kaari, Scientist-C, is currently working at the Centre for Drug Discovery and Development, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology (SIST), Chennai. He completed his PhD in Life Sciences at SIST. He has more than nine years of experience in microbial bioprospecting for natural product drug discovery and their biomedical and agricultural applications. He was selected and participated as a Scientific member (Microbiology) in the 11^th Indian Scientific Expedition of Southern Ocean to study marine microbial diversity organized by NCPOR-Ministry of Earth Science, Government of India. In his research career, he has developed three microbial products for sustainable agriculture and got published one Indian product patent. Moreover, he has published more than 75 publications which includes research, reviews, book chapters and manual chapters in several reputed national and international journals. He has also documented more than 600 microbial sequences were deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).